Sir – It hasn’t taken long for the Conservative plan to shrink the public sector to hit Oxford. Already Network Rail’s rail electrification plans have been delayed. The county council is in desperate financial straits.

And we must wait until 2018 at the earliest, even for work to start, on the promised Oxford flood relief channel.

Successful Oxford contributes a huge amount in taxes to the national exchequer but receives less and less back. Our universities, the car factory, our hospitals and our research are world leaders. But the new Government puts political dogma before the needs of ordinary citizens.

None of the Oxford cutbacks are at all necessary. But the Tories are too busy finding handouts for the very wealthiest citizens. It is time the Conservative MPs supposedly representing Oxfordshire argued strongly for the public investment locally we all so desperately need.

John Tanner
City councillor for Littlemore & county councillor for Isis
Oxford